Shattered
by WhyMustIWrite
Summary: 17-year-old Umino Iruka is in the hands of the enemy's Torture & Interrogation Department. Ultimately, it is not the actions of his tormentors but the decision of a friend that destroys him.
1. Chapter 1

Set in my "Not Over Till The Paperwork Is In" universe. If you haven't read it, don't worry, this can easily stand alone.

**Warnings:** Off-screen torture, and death.

* * *

As far as B-rank missions go, this one had been standard and clear-cut. Infiltrate, investigate, gather intelligence, withdraw immediately: Iruka undertook similar missions on a regular basis, usually during academy breaks or exam week, where his presence as an assistant teacher was not required.

However, Iruka would have done well to remember that becoming too comfortable with your work is a mistake few ninjas live to regret. There's no such thing as a "standard" mission.

One significant event made this mission decidedly dissimilar from any other he'd undertaken. This time, he and his partner were captured.

His partner, Kyasha, had been promoted to chunin a year ago. Her appearance was plain, with mousy brown hair that frizzed when it got humid, coffee brown eyes framed with short lashes, and a forgettable face. She wasn't ugly, but she wasn't particularly good looking either.

This, of course, was part of the reason she was selected for spywork. Iruka laughed when spy movies came out starring gorgeous secret agents. Really, how far could an undercover worker get when his brilliant smile and eye-catching figure turned every head in a half mile radius?

Since Kyasha's promotion to chunin, the Sadaime paired her with Iruka on missions, allowing the older teen to show her the ropes. With their similar age and coloring, they easily posed as brother and sister, cousins, boyfriend and girlfriend, or whatever their role happened to be at the moment. Iruka took the responsibility of training her seriously, and Kyasha progressed quickly.

Now he found himself teaching by example another aspect of spying: resisting torture and interrogation.

Morino Ibiki's lessons came back to him, and Iruka for the first time was fiercely grateful for Ibiki's sadistic, unrelenting training. Now he was prepared for the real thing. If he ever got back to Konoha, he'd complain less and show more appreciation for the time and effort the man invested in him.

They were still in the early stages of torture, Iruka noted, when he could think of something other than the pain. He and Kyasha had not yet been separated.

The enemy would try first to disconcert and demoralize them with their teammate's pain, Ibiki had warned. If that failed, isolation was next.

Oddly, the teen was looking forward to the isolation. Iruka hated when they tortured Kyasha in front of him, knowing as he did that she had yet to complete her Advanced Torture Resistance courses. Besides that, he'd grown a bit protective of his protégé, despite being only two years her senior.

He hated when they made her scream, but he hated it more when they made her cry. With tears streaming down her face, she looked too much like the fifteen year old girl she was, and not enough like the battle-hardened kunoichi she needed to be.

Iruka hated how _weak_ he felt, utterly helpless to protect her.

He hated foul language too, yet he found himself hurling profanities and crude insults at their tormentors, attempting to get their attention away from her, and back on him where it belonged.

At the end of the torture sessions, the two were tossed back into their cramped, musty cell. Iruka hated that their captors didn't need to bother with chains. They were trapped even without being physically restrained. Chakra draining cuffs prevented them from using any jutsu. They were too ravaged physically to fight. And of course, they had no weapons.

In fact, they had no clothes. Keeping them naked was part of the psychological torture. Ibiki had explained that it's designed to make captives feel exposed, vulnerable, and humiliated.

Iruka hates that it works.

At the present, alone in their cell after a hard session, Iruka ventures to talk to Kyasha, but he keeps his eyes respectfully on the floor. "You did well today, Kyasha-chan," he encourages, though his voice rasps and his throat burns from the effort. Right now he's so desperately thirsty, he would give just about anything for a single glass of water. Well, except the information their tormentors seek.

She doesn't respond.

"Really, you should talk to me now while you can." Iruka urges gently. "Before long we'll be put into isolation. Then we'll be fairly desperate for companionship. Unless we're rescued first, of course." He forces a smile into his voice, though he can't make it reach his face. He had to be strong, despite the pain and humiliation they put him through. For her sake, and for Konoha. Still, he cannot coax her into conversation.

"Kyasha-chan, please, talk to me." Was that really _his_ voice, sounding so needy and far more pleading than he'd intended? "I…I need to keep my mind off the pain."

Silence.

Just when Iruka abandons the notion of conversation, she speaks. "I can't do this anymore, Iruka-kun."

"What? No, Kyasha-chan, you can. You _have_ to. The Leaf Village is depending on us. Think of our comrades."

Iruka hears quiet sobs and finally looks up at her. She is huddled against the wall, arms hugging her knees close to her chest. It strikes Iruka again how achingly young she looks when in tears.

He painfully drags himself closer, ignoring the protests from abused, lacerated muscles. "Is it okay if I put my hand on your shoulder?" He figures he should ask. After how those brutes violated her, she may not appreciate another man's touch.

After a hesitant nod, he does so in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. "You're strong, Kyasha-chan. You can endure this."

"N-no. I…I…" The sobbing became louder. "I can't take this," she choked out. "J-just _look_ at us. Look at your hand! You'll never be a ninja after this."

The hand he'd placed on her shoulder, Iruka admits mentally, does look a bit grotesque, with the fingers sticking out at such odd angles and the patchwork of blue, purple and red adorning the skin.

"This? This is nothing, Kyasha-chan. Trust me. When we're back in Konoha, they'll re-break the fingers, set them properly, and after a couple months of physical therapy, it'll be good as new," Iruka affirms. "I'll be performing hand signs as well as any ninja. I'll work on my penmanship, even. After this, you'll never have to complain about my handwriting again. I promise. Just _don't give up on me_, okay?"

"I'm not as strong as you, Iruka," she declares, dissolving into tears once again. "I _can't.._.I can't..."

"Hush, not so loudly." He tries to keep the worry from his voice. "What if they hear you?"

The sobbing decreases as she realizes what he fears. The interrogator will hear her, realize she is weakening, and finally succeed in breaking her. Kyasha looks straights into her partner's eyes. "You have to kill me," she states firmly.

"What?" Iruka blinks, taken aback by the sudden steel in her voice. "No. I can't. Don't even ask m-"

"You have to." Kyasha insists. "I'm going to break. I know I am."

His throat is too dry, and he vainly attempts to swallow. "You can't give up like this," Iruka asserts firmly, though he is suddenly feeling dizzy. "Sadaime-sama, he will send help. You just have to hold on until they find us."

"Even if they find us," Kyasha murmurs, misery laced in her words, "I don't want to live. I'd rather die than live with what they've done to me."

Iruka slips an arm around her shoulders. She tenses, then relaxes into him. Her ear is against his chest, and she can hear his heartbeat. It's too fast.

"Don't say such things. You'll be fine. You're a Konoha ninja. Think of your village."

"I am! That's why you have to kill me now, Iruka-san, _before_ I talk."

The sound of footsteps in the hallway interrupts the debate. The floor is deliberately designed to echo, in order to heighten fear and announce the interrogator's approach.

Kyasha stiffens. "He's coming!" Her face turns white. "Iruka-san, hurry. Do it now before he gets here."

Iruka looks at her, torn and uncertain. Hadn't she thought of what this would do to him? How is he supposed to keep himself from breaking after killing his own teammate?

As if sensing his thoughts, she grabs his shoulders and shakes him. "Do it for the village, Iruka. And…and for me." She looks away. "Please, I don't want to die a traitor."

The footsteps are closer, though slow. He can't sense the chakra with those cuffs on, and the echoing hall make it difficult to determine just how close he is now, how many seconds are left until his arrival.

"Okay." Iruka relents. His left hand grips her right shoulder. His mutilated right hand lies flat on her left cheek, the heel of his hand slightly cupping her chin. "I…I just want to let you know…I was glad to work with you…and-"

"Just do it," she whispers, closing her eyes and waiting.

He pushes hard with his right hand while pulling forward with his left. The sound of her neck snapping makes him sick. When he drops her body, her neck is angled as grotesquely as his fingers.

He stares at her numbly, nausea rising in his throat, and doesn't look away, even when he hears the prison door swinging opening. He knows he'll be punished severely, but Iruka will bear it in honor of Kyasha.

"Finally! We found you." A masculine voice sighs.

Iruka flinches. Turning slowly to face the speaker, he feels himself dying inside. Standing before him was Raidou, a Konoha jounin, uninjured and covered in blood not his own. At that moment, Iruka would have given anything, perhaps even that classified information, to be faced with the interrogator instead.

Raidou strides forward and kneels beside Iruka to better assess his condition. The jounin's breath catches when he sees the dead kunoichi. He curses angrily, then shakes his head, "I'm sorry we came too late for her."

Raidou continues speaking to him, but his voice seems too far away. Iruka belatedly drags his attention back to his unwelcomed rescuer. "What?"

"I asked- Did she talk? Did they break her?" the jounin repeats.

"No," Iruka murmurs. "They didn't break her."

"And what about you?" Raidou's serious eyes bear into his. "Did you break?"

Did he break? Iruka almost laughs, but holds back, not wanting to give Raidou a reason to doubt his sanity. He keeps his eyes on his comrade. "No, I didn't break."

And it's true: Iruka isn't broken. He is shattered.


	2. Chapter 2

Set in the Not Over Til The Paperwork Is In universe. Events in this chapter are alluded to in Sharpening Iron. However, this story easily stands alone.

Warning: Suicidal shinobi.

* * *

Comrade killer.

The very mention of the term is enough to elicit disdain and disgust in even the most emotionally detached of the village's warriors. Those who Hide in the Leaves are a proud people, bound to each other by the Will of Fire. There are few crimes so heinous, so vile, as a ninja taking in cold blood the life of his fellow shinobi.

Comrade killer.

Two words that haunt Iruka, even now that he is safe in the arms of his village, away from his physical tormentors. Words that mock him at the end of a long day of physical therapy.

He needs to relearn to walk, because of the damage sustained during torture. His right hand needs to be reconstructed and restored to usefulness. Despite the pain of rehabilitation, he throws himself into the challenge. Iruka pushes himself day and night, because he knows the moment he stops to rest, those two words will rise up to accuse him. The pain accompanying his physical therapy is a welcome distraction, but it is disheartening work. It shouldn't be so hard to simply place one foot before the other- a skill he had mastered by the age of one.

Comrade killer.

The staff assures him that he is no such thing. Ibiki claims that his actions were justified. But Iruka sees the stricken face of Kyasha's little brother, the pain in her mother's eyes, and the cold blankness of the father's expression, and he knows better. Her family will not tell him so aloud, but their hearts clearly blame him.

And why not? His legs can heal. His hand can regain function. But Kyasha will always be dead because of him.

So when the nurses find him collapsed in the hallway at 2am, they rebuke him for straining his legs and attempting to walk without supervision. They say he needs to listen to his body when it tells him to rest. They don't understand that he _needs_ the pain. Anything to quiet the condemning voices in his head, reminding him of what he is.

That's why, when a nurse returns him to his room after his late night "walks," he procures a pen and notebook, or scrap of paper, or dirty napkin, or his forearm if all the other writable surfaces have been exhausted, and proceeds to practice his penmanship.

He can't quite hold the pen right. It often slips from his nerveless grip. His characters are too large and shaky, resembling a toddler's casual scribble rather than the painstaking labor of hour upon hour. It frustrates him.

He yells at his doctors. Flings his lunch tray against the wall. Purposely gives his nurses a hard time. He is hell to deal with and this makes him feel guilty too, since he knows it's not really _them_ with whom he is angry. Iruka promised Kyasha that his penmanship would be better than ever, and he is furious with himself for being so slow to fulfill the last promise he made to his friend before he killed her.

* * *

They say time heals all wounds. Enough time passes and Iruka is able to _walk_ out of the hospital. He can perform handsigns, eat with chopsticks, and write neater and clearer than before. The evidence of his torture has faded to only the scars on his body. And yet he is still shattered.

He resumes his normal activities, as the psychologists said he should. The children are happy to have their assistant teacher back, even if he is a bit quieter than usual. He tutors after school every Tuesday and Thursday. He is faithful to his training sessions with Mizuki, every Wednesday, and Friday.

However, Monday and Saturday training sessions with Kyasha are cancelled. One cannot train with a partner one has killed. Spending that time alone with his condemning inner voice becomes unbearable.

One day he overhears the jounin complaining about long lines at the Mission Desk. It turns out they are understaffed, and Iruka volunteers his time in the Mission Room, careful to sign up every Monday and Saturday.

He hasn't worked the Mission Desk long before, one Saturday, the Third Hokage stops Iruka in the midst of filing. He smiles warmly at the youth and commends him for his diligence and admirable work ethic. The shattered teen feels worthwhile for the first time since Kyasha's death. If he can prove himself valuable to his other comrades, perhaps that will atone for his crime against one.

The Mission Room files undergo a thorough reorganization process. The new system is so efficient, Iruka is asked to become a permanent and paid member of the staff. He begins spending Sundays, his only remaining free day, in the Mission Room as well.

He invests more time with his students by taking up more afterschool tutoring sessions.

Anyone who needs their shift covered knows to ask Iruka first. If his schedule is open, he will not say no. You can also count on him to pick up the slack if you need to leave early. He doesn't mind taking home a stack or two or three of mission files.

Iruka's dependable. He likes to help. He is easy to approach, though he has been known to explode in fits of temper. Still, people come to him for guidance, advice, or perhaps just a sympathetic ear. He'll gladly offer his comrades a shoulder to cry on, a side to lean into, or a kick in the pants for motivation.

Iruka's such an industrious young man, people comment to one another when they speak of the little sensei. If he works through his lunch break, that's his prerogative. No one _sees_ him eat, but they're sure he must. Much the same as people naturally assume that he sleeps more than an hour or two a night. Only Inuzuka Tsume, after turning in her mission report, is brash enough to force food down his throat, claiming that he's beginning to look like a "runty pup."

Still, no one notices that he is shattered, and he does not tell them. A comrade killer has no right to burden others with his problems. He'll just have to deal with them on his own.

No one notices Iruka's struggle to stay together, it is done so quietly. And when he finally falls apart that, too, is done quietly.

When Iruka decides to kill himself, he goes about it in much the same way he does anything else- thoughtfully and efficiently.

It should not be an obvious suicide; that would be a bad example to his students. No, he wants it to appear as much like an accident as possible. The investigators will not be fooled for long, but hopefully if the act isn't obvious, the final report won't be made known to the young, impressionable children.

So seppuku and hanging is out of the question.

It also needs to be absolutely lethal. Surviving a botched attempt was not an option.

Exploding tags are perhaps the best guarantors of success. He can stage it to look like he'd accidently set off a home security trap. But a blast strong enough to ensure fatality will also endanger anyone who may happen to be in the area, as well as damage infrastructure. And it will require a lot of unpleasant clean up.

He can assign himself a mission, then allow himself to be killed. But that will likely entail failing the mission, which will in turn damage the reputation of Konoha.

Perhaps he should reconsider the security trap ruse, but employ a variation that will result in his beheading instead? …Still, it's a messy way to die. The gruesome nature of the death could prove quite traumatic for whoever eventually finds him. A last resort, then, if he can think of nothing better.

The sensei puzzles over this for a while longer until he settles on poison. The right concoction can mimic a heart attack, stroke, or seizure. Iruka isn't familiar with the arts of the apothecary, but research should remedy that deficiency. Seventeen is a rather young age for heart attacks, but not unheard of among shinobi who routinely pushed their bodies to the limit.

Having decided on the method, and after meticulous library research and careful inquiry among ninja skilled in the art of poison brewing, Iruka had only to choose the day and time of his death. Friday, after school, seemed most convenient. It gives the Academy an entire weekend to find his replacement.

On Monday, Iruka pays off his few debts, and sets his affairs in order. The teen's desire to update his will is not unusual. Most shinobi want to be prepared for the inevitable.

On Tuesday, he writes a detailed explanation of the new file system he recently developed for the Missions Department and leaves it in a conspicuous spot on his desk for his successor to find later.

On Wednesday, his coworkers idly comment on how much more cheerful Iruka seems all of a sudden.

On Thursday, Iruka decides to gift Mizuki the short sword that had belonged to his mother. Hayate is delighted to receive an expensive, calfskin leather weapons pouch. Anko throws the valuable Water Country medallion back in his face, offended that he'd assume she wants jewelry just because she's a girl. That quickly cures Iruka of the crush he's had on her since their Academy days.

It's a silly contention, since the medallion had actually been his father's, and Iruka isn't about to bicker with the exasperating kunoichi the day before he dies. Instead he brings the medallion to Ibiki. The interrogator is an esteemed mentor, so Iruka doesn't mind offering him the treasured possession.

Now Ibiki- psychology expert that he is- immediately recognizes the warning sign and promptly tosses the startled chunin into a holding cell. Ninja are deployed to investigate the teen's apartment.

It does not take long for them to find the recipe for the heart-attack inducing poison, along with all the ingredients necessary for its concoction, arranged neatly in his cupboard. Iruka is sent to a rehabilitation center.

Coworkers and students are told that the little sensei is on vacation.

* * *

They say time heals all wounds. Iruka is surprised to find that, when dealt with, this can include emotional ones as well.

At the center, he learns to come to terms with the choices he's made, including the one to kill his teammate. He starts to differentiate between diligence at work and unhealthy obsession.

Ibiki is there to evaluate him before he is cleared for release. The last two times the center cleared Iruka for check out, the interrogation specialist had overturned the decision, claiming that the teen wasn't ready yet.

This meeting is different. After a lengthy session, the jounin offers his pupil a rare grin. "You're coming along, Umino."

"So I get to go back to work?" Iruka perks up at the prospect.

"You get to go _home_," Ibiki corrects. "You'll go back to work once I'm convinced you can do so without harming yourself."

"Very well," Iruka concedes reluctantly. "I guess that's got to be good enough for now. I can't wait to get out of here."

The young chunin fidgets, and Ibiki sighs, "If there's something else you want to tell me, then go ahead. You know I hate it when you waste my time, boy."

"Oh," Iruka blushes and rubs his scar nervously "Well, I just- I just wanted to say thank you, you know?"

"No, I don't know," Ibiki replies gruffly, his usual tone whenever he suspects that what he's about to hear will be sentimental.

Iruka's gaze becomes serious. "I realized something while I was here, Ibiki-sensei. I realized that I never _truly_wanted to die."

"Of course you didn't," Ibiki casually responds. "Few people actually do. Why else would you have tried to give away your things to _me_ of all people? You were counting on me, perhaps subconsciously, to see through your deception. With my experience in breaking spirits, I'd be the most likely to recognize the signs."

"And you helped me," Iruka continued. "I'm lucky to have a friend like you."

"Now hang on a second, Umino," Ibiki barked. "I never said anything about being friends."

"But you've been watching out for me this whole time. You won't let me leave until _you're _convinced I'm ready, despite what the doctors here say." Iruka grins roguishly as he glanced at the clock. "And you've just stayed with me a half hour longer than your maximum allotment for standard sessions. I'd call that friendship."

Ibiki grins right back. "Sorry to disillusion you, but it's called 'protecting the village resources,' kid."

"And you claim _I _have a problem with denial."

* * *

Iruka returns from his "vacation" and once again his students are thrilled. His coworkers welcome him back, just as oblivious and even a little jealous of their comrade's extended time off to tour the beauties of southern Fire Country.

Iruka smiles genuinely as he claims that it is very good to be back.

It still hurt. Kami, did it hurt. And he suspects it always will- much like the lingering pain in his hand that doctors say will flare any time the air pressure changed.

Yes, Iruka may still be a bit broken, but at least he is no longer shattered.


End file.
